[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell in Industry

[Max Cantor]

Remember that Banks/Financial Firms/Investment Banks were among the first big uses of punch card readers, mainframes, cobol, C, C++ (and OOP), VBA, Java..  I'm not saying if I like any of those languages (my presence on this list should give a clue how I feel) but investment banks picking up FP and Haskell bodes quite well for Haskell in the future.

Max

On Aug 10, 2010, at 12:59 AM, Tom Hawkins wrote:

>> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
>> problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
>> than investment banking.
> 
> I've received a lot mail on this comment; mostly positive.  Here's one
> from someone who wishes to remain anonymous:
> 
>> First of all I would like to say that I like your work regarding e.g.
>> Atom. Second, I would like to know what exactly is bad about a Haskell
>> job in investment banking as a lot of good programmers work in this
>> industry.
> 
> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
> programming are with investment firms.  I believe investment banking
> is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage
> of the world's top tier programmers?  Is computing the risk of
> derivative contracts more important than pursuing sustainable energy,
> new drug discovery, improving crop yields, etc.  Some will argue
> investment banking enables all of these things -- and I'm sure many
> people in the industry go to work everyday feeling proud of their
> contributions.  But I just think most of this talent is going in to
> improve the bottom line and little else.
> 
> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is, and that's who's hiring.
> Actually I'm very glad.  Investment banking is the first industry to
> adopt functional programming on a large scale.  And others will
> follow.)
> 
> -Tom
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